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A turning point in HIV/AIDs medicine yesterday–scientists have found a baby girl that they believe has been cured of HIV through the application of heavy doses of anti-viral drugs within the first 2 days of birth.

The fact that the newborn tested positive for HIV within 30 hours of birth is a sign she was probably infected in utero, HIV specialists say.

Gay decided to begin treating the child immediately, with the first dose of antivirals given within 31 hours of birth. That’s faster than most infants born with HIV get treated, and specialists think it’s one important factor in the child’s cure.

In addition, Gay gave higher-than-usual, “therapeutic” doses of three powerful HIV drugs rather than the “prophylactic” doses usually given in these circumstances.

Over the months, the baby thrived and standard tests could detect no virus in her blood, which is the normal result from antiviral treatment.

Shortly after, the baby and her mother had disappeared and it turns out the mother stopped giving her the anti-viral drugs. When authorities found the family, the doctors say they were surprised to see that the virus was no longer present in her system, expecting it would be. It is the second time in 32 years that this has ever happened (the first because of a man who got a bone marrow transplant from someone who was resistant to the virus).

ACT UP was the last of the great new social movements of the 20th century, a direct descendent of all that had come before, its members trained by veterans of Stonewall, the Freedom Summer, and the grassroots creators of the women’s and gay liberation movements. At its peak, it had a budget of more than a million a year—without a single paid staffer. (In fact, if I recall correctly from my days on the Coordinating Committee, the greatest regular monthly expense was the industrial-strength Xerox machine we rented to produce reports, letters, fliers, and posters.) Independent affiliates took root in more than 100 sites around the world. Roughly 1,000 people came together every Monday night in lower Manhattan in the purest example of democracy I’ve ever experienced, to argue, plan, cajole and flirt, before breaking for a week in which more than 40 committees and subcommittees would continue the work on everything from neuroscience to HIV prevention to housing policy.

It is overwhelming, inspiring and beautiful to think about the people that fought, researched, organized and rose up to make this day happen.

In the wake of important conversations around sexual harassment and sexual violence being had following the #MeToo movement, leftist publishing house Verso is offering for free an e-book entitled Where Freedom Starts: Sex Power Violence #MeToo, a collection of powerful and intersectional takes on power, feminism, and politics.

The book is an important intervention in a conversation that, in the mainstream, even “liberal” media, has become distracted relitigating regressive questions of what constitutes consent and whether women ask for it and diluted in its impact by the transphobia of one of its key initial instigators. On this website, we’ve tried our best to steer the conversation in other directions instead: discussing the centrality of trans ...

In the wake of important conversations around sexual harassment and sexual violence being had following the #MeToo movement, leftist publishing house Verso is offering for free an e-book entitled Where Freedom Starts: Sex Power Violence #MeToo, a ...

Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) admitted to Vice that they had scrapped plans for a dedicated transgender unit in a Texas private detention center that opened shortly after Trump’s inauguration. ICE’s announcement forces activists into an impossible bind: choose between the fight for safer detention conditions for trans women now or fight against the inhumane system of detention altogether.

The ICE spokesperson said that the change of plans was “due to an increased demand for detention bed space.” That’s one hell of a euphemism for the ramp-up of Trump’s deportation machine and

Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) admitted to Vice that they had scrapped plans for a dedicated transgender unit in a Texas private detention ...

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